Sun Microsystems Shines for Visteon
16 June 1999
Visteon Selects Sun Microsystems Servers for Global Delivery System
PALO ALTO, Calif. -- Visteon Automotive Systems, an enterprise of Ford Motor
Company and a leading automotive supplier, has selected Sun Microsystems's
technologies as the foundation to build its new global delivery system.
Aimed to reduce order-to-delivery time and improve customer service, the new
global system is built on Sun Enterprise(TM) servers, Ultra(TM) workstations,
storage solutions, and Solaris(TM) operating environment. SAP R/3 software and
an Oracle database will form the backbone of Visteon's business transactions,
replacing most of the existing purchasing, accounting, financial, sales order
management and distribution systems. The scalable Sun solution will allow the
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system to grow with Visteon's needs,
providing flexibility and reducing costs.
Visteon chose Sun Enterprise servers because their scalability will allow
its ERP systems to grow in phases, providing greater flexibility in
Information Technology (IT) project planning and minimizing installation
costs. Since Sun systems are upward and downward compatible, Visteon can take
advantage of the superior scalability of Sun(TM) workstations and servers to
build the solid, yet flexible IT infrastructure needed to meet rapidly
changing business requirements on an ongoing, global basis. Visteon also had
the confidence that Sun Enterprise servers could support very large SAP
deployments. Over the next four years, Visteon plans to support 25,000 named
users throughout its organization worldwide.
With a global delivery system of more than 125 technical, manufacturing,
sales and service facilities located in 21 countries, Visteon Automotive
Systems is leveraging the talents of its 77,000 employees to deliver
innovative, consumer-driven solutions to its customers.
Another factor in Visteon's decision to purchase R/3 on Sun systems was
the industry-leading SAP Sales and Distribution benchmark results on the Sun
and Oracle platform. In particular, Visteon chose the Sun Enterprise
10000 server as a production system for the mainframe-class reliability,
availability and serviceability (RAS) needed to run critical applications like
ERP. In addition to Sun's Starfire(TM) server, Visteon has purchased Sun
Enterprise 3500 and 4500 servers, UltraSPARC(TM) workstations and Sun UniPack,
D1000 disk, terminal servers and DLT tape drive storage systems.
Sun Professional Services' Global BusinessWare practice has also been
successful in helping Visteon define its SAP R/3 technical architecture in
providing SAP BASIS services.
"We have a very aggressive timeline to deploy SAP R/3 across Visteon to
realize the benefits quickly," said Dave Bent, Chief Information Officer at
Visteon. "Sun has been very flexible and forthcoming in meeting and exceeding
our IT requirements. Sun is a proven ally that provides value to our
business, not just in delivering high tech computer systems, but also in
helping us translate technical solutions into improvements to our business."
Phase I Deployment
Visteon's first phase of deployment will be launched in the Aftermarket
area and will support its Glass Systems business in North America. The new
Sun and SAP R/3 systems will replace non-Year 2000-compliant legacy systems
with a new fully integrated system that will provide a platform for future
releases addressing different geographic regions and business units in
Visteon. First phase deployment is anticipated this summer.
All SAP R/3 modules will be deployed on Sun's platform. These systems
include supply chain management, production scheduling and optimization,
demand forecasting, electronic commerce and Visteon product data management.
Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) and electronic commerce applications
from Netscape will be fully integrated with Visteon's ERP system for flawless
data exchange with its suppliers and customers. The EDI equipment located at
its Internet Operations Center (IOC), is integrated with Visteon's development
systems, which are all built on a single Sun server platform.
In the future, as SAP moves from a graphical user interface to Web-based
interface based on Java(TM) technologies, Visteon will also modify its systems
to leverage the Internet, which will reduce complexity at the desktop and
simplify operations and support.
About Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Since its inception in 1982, a singular vision, "The Network Is The
Computer(TM)" has propelled Sun Microsystems, Inc., to its position as a
leading provider of high quality hardware, software and services for
establishing enterprise-wide intranets and expanding the power of the
Internet.